In the Heart of Silicon Valley: Sacred Heart's Olive Harvest

Since 1898, more than fifty 100-year-old heirloom olive trees have lined the western edge of Sacred Heart Schools’ campus along Elena Avenue in Atherton.  In the early part of the century the nuns who ran the school tended to the trees and harvested the olives, but as time went on, the trees became less of an agricultural crop and more of a natural part of the campus landscape.

From the 1950’s until recently, during the month of November, the plump olives ended up on the ground, smashed and tracked into the classrooms that often left the carpets soiled.  However in 2008, Paul and Nancy Sallaberry, parents at the school, had an idea, “Let’s pick the olives and press it into olive oil to sell as a fundraiser for the high school’s Booster Club.”   This began the tradition of harvesting the olive trees to create Sacred Heart Schools’ premium olive oil.

On November 17 and 18, community members gathered for the third annual olive harvest to handpick between two to four tons of olives.  The football-shaped fruit about the size of one’s thumbnail were immediately milled on site to produce the highly sought-after Sacred Heart olive oil. 

Harvesting the Picholine olives, a French variety known as the “Queen of the Provencal,” came from “an interesting confluence of factors, 63-acres of open space, and a mandate from the founding Sisters to be responsible for creation and be stewards of the earth,” said Dr. Stewart Slafter, director of the sustainable garden and farm program at Sacred Heart Schools, Atherton.

As part of Sacred Heart’s emphasis on teaching student to respect Mother Earth, the education of learning how quality food products arrive from tree to table was not lost on community members.  Dan Flynn from U.C. Davis’ Olive Center was on hand to conduct olive oil tastings for the volunteers who came out to help with the harvest, and Olive to Bottle, a mobile olive mill, demonstrated just how the milling machine crushes the fruit and spins it in a centrifuge to extract the luminous green oil.

Sacred Heart’s olive oil, packaged in 7-ounce bottles, will be sold at the annual Sacred Heart Christmas Boutique.  Located in the Main Building at 150 Valparaiso Avenue in Atherton, California, boutique hours are December 5 & 6 (8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.), and December 7 (9:00 a.m. to noon). The funds raised will benefit sports activities sponsored by Sacred Heart Preparatory’s Boosters Club.